The richest 1% in the world emitted an average 110 tons of CO2 per person in 2019, details the study carried out by the economist Lucas Chancel, co-director of the WIL at the Paris School of Economics.
This represents 17% of the world’s CO2 emissions for that year.. All these emissions come from the consumption and investment habits of this category of the population, according to the WIL.
Furthermore, while the richest 10% of the world generates half of the planetary emissions, the poorest half of the population is barely responsible for 12% of the global, an average per person of 1.6 tons of carbon per person.
“There is a strong inequality in the contributions to the climate problem,” Chancel told AFP, proposing to assess with progressive ecological taxes based on wealth.
“Governments need new sources of income to invest in green infrastructure“And one way to get them is” through progressive green taxes, “he said.
“This could be politically more viable than taxes on carbon consumption, which hit the lowest income groups hard and do not help to reduce the emissions of the richest,” he added.
Among the proposed solutions, the report defends taking individual emissions into account in public policies to target polluting behaviors.
The study denounces that the weight of climate policies falls on the poorest classes and defends putting “more emphasis” on the richest groups, proposing, for example, “instruments aimed at investments in polluting activities.”
In addition to the wealthiest individuals, the most developed countries have a higher carbon footprint when products manufactured abroad and imported into their territory are taken into account.
For Europe, the inclusion of carbon emissions in the value of its products increases the final bill by 25%.